Kaplan

Contemporary art with a feminine essence

Taking advantage of - and enjoying - the privilege of being able to tour Kaplan with its director, we asked her to choose, without much thought, three artists whose works surround us and tell us about them. To share whatever comes to mind. We're all ears.

Author: Aina Coll

Photographer: Jaume Oliver

Kaplan Projects is both an art gallery and a breeding ground for ideas and connections. Within its walls, solo exhibitions take place, but also an ongoing dialogue between works by different artists, which at times result in new projects for institutional and private spaces.

The idea of promoting this concept in Palma came from Mercedes Estarellas, who, after a life dedicated to art and cultural management in China, the United States, Germany, and Spain, decided in 2019 to create a space in the heart of the city to showcase the works of all her artists - a kind of open warehouse for the public that would give visibility to the production once a solo show ended - while also curating contemporary art exhibitions for others.

The dream became a reality, and this space is now real. It displays a vinyl that reads "Kaplan Projects," occupies number 10 on Costa de Santa Creu, and, in some way, ensures the continuation of the life of works that, after an exhibition, would commonly end up in a closed space awaiting their next show or potential acquisition.

On a cold morning in March, we are fortunate to get lost between the rooms of this atypical gallery, guided by its founder, who is focused on preparing the upcoming exhibition - which will take place in her other space, Kaplan Gallery, at Mateo Obrador. It is a solo show of Alejandra Freymann - winner of the Innovation Painting Award at the 33rd edition of the BMW Prize in 2018 - an artist who draws from surrealism and magical realism, with a certain dreamlike, sometimes humorous, and sometimes emotional charge.

Taking advantage of - and enjoying - the privilege of being able to tour Kaplan with its director, we asked her to choose, without much thought, three artists whose works surround us and tell us about them. To share whatever comes to mind. We're all ears. And Estarellas eagerly responds, excited, with the energy of someone who has turned her passion into her way of life.

‘Guido Bisagni’ (Alessandria, Italy 1978), she says, pointing to one of the works in Equinoccio de otoño, which explores the always introspective black color and the contrasts it creates in the balance between light and darkness. Bisagni - known as 108 - has intervened in the walls of Milan, Paris, Berlin, and New York as a graffiti artist and is, surely due to his training as an architect, ‘an artist very interested in music, mathematics, and proportion.’

The critical gaze of Kepa Garraza Berango (Vizcaya, 1979) and his hyperrealistic art, which not only engages the viewer but also presses them into reflection, is the second chosen artist. In oil and charcoal paintings that look like photographs, Kepa ‘has studied the representation of power through the history of art and has reproduced many paintings, like what he’s doing now, equestrian portraits without the rider,’ our guide shares as we marvel at the catalog from his latest exhibition.

With eyes wide open, observing what surrounds us, Mercedes finally settles on the Korean artist Kyungwoo Chun (1969, Seoul), for whom she curated the exhibition Resonancia at the Casal Solleric earlier this year. ‘He is an artist who has worked on empathy and his personal history.’

We want to know more, and Mercedes elaborates: ‘The exhibition Thousands is about his lineage, which means thousands,’ and being of Korean descent, Kyungwoo Chun searched for his ancestors - tracing back to the 16th century - in China, ‘and there he photographed a bunch of Chuns,’ says the director of Kaplan, now pausing at The Listeners, an intimate project that explores blindness and ‘in which the work itself is created through a gesture, a reaction, a minimal action.’

After these brief glimpses into art and wisdom - which, if it were up to us, could go on for hours - it’s our turn, says Mercedes. Amused, we choose a sort of jar that is very familiar to us: it’s a work by the Mallorcan artist Albert Pinya, created in collaboration with ceramist Català Roig for the project Cambra de combustió at Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani in 2022.

A large-scale painting and clay exhibition that was curated by Mercedes Estarellas and speaks of our identity, our crafts, and perhaps a bit of our uniqueness, seen through the unique perspective of the two artists. A choice quite in tune with the essence of Travel to Zero to end this visit, also singular, also extraordinary. Thank you, Mercedes.